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Last week I was in Nashville and flew back on my birthday and reflected on that experience, and got some feedback from others. At the time I was reflecting on some memories from my childhood that weren’t that great, and at the time I simply allowed myself to feel sorry for myself and feel the feelings that were associated with the experiences I had had, as I perceived them. Now I am not going around blaming others or looking for a fight. I just think sometimes you should allow yourself to feel sorry for yourself. I mean if something bad happened to you, and you don’t allow yourself to be honest about it, then you aren’t practicing emotional integrity, are you?
A while back I started a cause on Facebook called “Virtual Fishtrap“. It refers to a place on Puget Sound in Washington State where myself and others lived before bad things started happening like people dying or getting divorced. Anyhoo the principles of our “cause” are:
- We believe in emotional integrity/honesty
- We like to walk on the beach
- We like sheep
Anyone is welcome to join.
We were thinking of making Fishtrap the site of the new University of Emotional Integrity.
Class will be on Fishtrap beach
Lolcat is ready to enroll.
Lolcat sports a lovely U. of Emotional Integrity shirt
And we’ve already gotten going on Board of Trustees, which will be headed by Milvina Dean, last survivor of the Titanic, whom I mentioned in my lecture last week on the tendency of trauma survivors to want to gather together on the anniversary of the traumatic event they experienced in common.
Milvina Dean, last survivor of the Titanic, with her favorite cat.
She died a few weeks ago, but it doesn’t matter, since we’ll mostly be using primary process thinking at the University. And after all, time is relative, right?
See you at the U.
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this made me think of my favorite post of all time in the mental health blogosphere which the author allowed me to repost on my blog…and so I’ll link there because I give her an intro she deserves…this is one heck of an awesome woman who was true to herself …
and I’m finding that her methods is what I’m intuitively drawn to to heal my own trauma.
http://bipolarblast.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/how-i-deal-with-mental-breakdowns/
here’s to emotional integrity…I think most of the world tells us to bury crap and suck it up…and that IS NOT the way to heal in my estimation…
I will join your cause!
But in this overly therapized age, don’t you think it can be taken too far? In order to de-institutionalize myself, get off meds, and join the mad movement, and stop identifying myself as a patient/victim, I had to *stop* feeling sorry for myself and take responsibility.
By the way, love your blog. Love to see a reformed psychiatric industry participant among our ranks.
Here’s my mad movement org, whose founder (and my ex) Will Hall recently got coverage in Newsweek for his work in the Icarus Project, our national sister orgL
http://www.freedom-center.org
& here’s my mad movement story and theories:
http://theicarusproject.net/articles/catys-story
La. Just clicking the “notify me of followup comments” button. Forgot to do that the first time.
I don’t think you can stop thinking of yourself as a victim until you *own* what happened to you. I actually think that we are under therapized. Most people don’t want to actually *hear* what you have to say because they would rather look on the bright side. Or what you have to say if honest makes them uncomfortable.
Sure, I get that, and certainly we’re undertherapized relative to how overmedicated we are. But in most therapeutic relationships, the vital step of taking responsibility after owning what happened is omitted–I think b.c the “mental health system” is designed to keep people in victim/patient/object/institutionalized roles.
As I go on slogging through the minutia of this fear conditioning paper I can get to feeling sorry for myself, but I keep looking toward that fabulous, glorious day when it will be done and submitted….
On the one hand, self-pity doesn’t help people who have continually viewed themselves as victims and haven’t taken responsibility for healing their own lives as adults. On the other hand, people who’ve taken the blame on themselves for what happened to them at the hands of others and have never seen themselves as victims can likely benefit from recognizing where a victim’s perspective applies.
Self-pity has a bad name, but it should be seen as a facet of self-compassion in the face of self blame or feeling undeserving.
I didn’t read this a literally feeling sorry for oneself which is simply self indulgent…I read it as allowing oneself to feel whatever one feels…and accepting it…which is healing and has nothing to do with traditional psychotherapy in my opinion.
If one practices this in a mindful way self-pity really does not even enter into the picture…at least not after one develops oneself to some extent…getting to that place may include allowing self-pity…it just depends where one is on their journey.
Doug…did I misinterpret??
I think that pretty much explains what I was trying to say. And as for being kept in the therapy system as an identified victim I would say that is what termination is all about.
oh, U Emotional Integrity t shirts now available here. Proceeds of course go to cats who have been damaged by prescription medications.
http://www.customink.com/designs/ueishirt2/13124998-2784958/hotlink?cm_ven=hotlink&cm_cat=2&cm_pla=Body_txt&cm_ite=design
Nothing pisses me off more than when I hear someone saying, “stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
As survivors of whatever it is any one of us has survived, we are usually the first to feel for others when we’ve seen them be wronged, or when we know they are hurting…sometimes we do that to the point that we lose site of our pains, and by doing that we can get in a cycle of deflection…ignoring ourselves.
We need to learn how to grieve for our own losses…experience those emotions rather than shoving them somewhere deep within to fester…
so go ahead…vent…complain…and yes, FEEL sorry for yourself if need be…it’s the only way you will be able to grow to feel joy for yourself as well.
This sounds like a place that is Heaven on Earth. Fish, LOL cats, women who survived the Titanic, I am honored to be with such company.
Can regular cats also join?
I have never been to Washington State though.
Oh real cats are most welcome!